Buttle not Tuttle:Wow. This is all brand new to me. Do you have small institutions that teach liberal arts, like Bard, Oberlin, etc.? And are the drugs as good?

Well, kinda. Colleges and universities have better programs in this or that discipline and are of varying size. I wouldn't necessarily say that there's a direct analogy.

Oh, and the big, big difference between US universities and Canadian ones? The sporting programs aren't big business (or remotely popular) and you don't have people who dropped out of high school wearing university sweatshirts.

I can only speak on behalf of Quebec which has a slightly different system.

Goes in this order:Elementary: Grades K-6High School: Grades 7-11Cegep (Often called 'College' by the English kids): 2 years and results in a DEC: A Diplome D'Études Collègial. Some see this as a pre-university arena where you pay next to nothing and get all the stupid "Yay! I have some freedom! Let's Binge!" outta your system before hitting University. This allows for the students to also figure out what they might be interested in. Back in my day (less than 10 years ago) it was 150$ a semester (plus books) so there was little to no reason to not experiment with different disciplines before locking into one at a University.It also allows for technical trades to be studied. Police Technology and Aircraft Maintenance were big at mine. Nursing, clerical studies, and similar are taught at this level. Jobs that require more than a basic high school certificate but not a full blown University degree.University: I believe the systems are roughly equivalent at this point.

The sticking point is, in my view, the Cegep level. Some kids want to stop and take a trade but there is such a heavy emphasis on University education that many get funneled in by their well-meaning folks. We have a serious shortage of trade and skilled workers up here. I find that even having a Master's Degree doesn't seperate you from the norm anymore if you went the university route.

Mercutio74 Thanks for educating me. I know you must slap your head in disbelief when you find out how little we know. I remember a coworker who was given some accounts for companies in Canada to manage. He payed one a visit, and found himself meeting the people he would be working with. They asked him "What's the capitol of Canada? Coworker: (Long pause.) Uh... Toronto? They all laughed their asses off.

Yeah, University in Canada means liberal arts degree and more theory-related subjects and gives degrees (Engineering, Business, Arts, Science, Social Work etc.). Colleges are technical training institutions that teach things like welding, heavy machinery, refrigerator repair, etc. There is some overlap in subjects like engineering, comp sci and business, with the former offering degrees normally and the latter offering diplomas.

Memorial University of Newfoundland also has a college attached to it, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, that does things like Fine Arts. Also, Memorial was a college (called itself Memorial University College) before being granted university status. So it might be different now than it used to be.

Buttle not Tuttle:Mercutio74 Thanks for educating me. I know you must slap your head in disbelief when you find out how little we know. I remember a coworker who was given some accounts for companies in Canada to manage. He payed one a visit, and found himself meeting the people he would be working with. They asked him "What's the capitol of Canada? Coworker: (Long pause.) Uh... Toronto? They all laughed their asses off.

Well, it's kind of understandable. I mean, we use the same words so when an American hears college or university, there's really no reason to suddenly research why someone's using words already familiar to you in a context that seems exactly the same.

And, I must say, I live in the province next door to Quebec and I've never heard of this cegep thingee before reading about it in this thread.

Mercutio74:Well, it's kind of understandable. I mean, we use the same words so when an American hears college or university, there's really no reason to suddenly research why someone's using words already familiar to you in a context that seems exactly the same.

And, I must say, I live in the province next door to Quebec and I've never heard of this cegep thingee before reading about it in this thread.

F.Y.I.:

CEGEP= Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel.

It's a lot like the R.O.C.'s colleges, but it also offers general programs to prepare students for university: Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, etc.

Well the problem in ontario is the way highschools run things. If in highschool you want to take the highest level math you take university level math but if your dumb you take college level math. It gives the idea that college students are dumb. I take computer programming at fanshawe college in london. I would challenge any Computer science student to do my projects. While I no doubt think they could do them I know they would have difficulty with them.

That being said I thought it was geared towards immigrants. Many of them in ontario discourage their children from attending college because they fear they will think for their own

I'd like to clarify that while the community colelge description is 75% appropriate, the other 25% is way off. In many fields, colleges offer the hands-on training that you don't get in university. This is one of the reasons nursing programs are so prevalent in colleges.

I went to a college for journalism rather than a university because it was hands-on, instead of electives and theory.

Buttle not Tuttle:Mercutio74 Thanks for educating me. I know you must slap your head in disbelief when you find out how little we know. I remember a coworker who was given some accounts for companies in Canada to manage. He payed one a visit, and found himself meeting the people he would be working with. They asked him "What's the capitol of Canada? Coworker: (Long pause.) Uh... Toronto? They all laughed their asses off.

University over college? Would one of our Canadian Farkers care to translate this for us poor Yanks, for whom these words mean the same thing?

Even in the US, the definition varies. For example, in some states a university is any educational organization that offers at least one accredited graduate-level degree. A college is simply any post-secondary educational facility. In other cases, a university is a facility with more than one college. This is all as compared to a "uni", which is a guy with only one ball.

Sygonus:However, the upside potential to many 4-year degrees is greater than their college equivalents. A B.Comm is going to trump a business diploma in most circumstances. Or if you want to be a technologist, scientist, software engineer etc. (read: a technically demanding but high-paying job), you're going to need a university degree. Also, getting a diploma limits your future choices with regards to getting a post-graduate degree of any sort.

The problem with this way of thinking is that not everybody is cut out for university, or work needing a university degree. I don't mean that only people too dumb to attend university should go to college (although there is some of that), but that many people's aptitudes and personalities are better suited to a more hands-on type or career. Too many people are funnelled towards university "because they have good grades so they're too smart to just go to college", but do not have the temperament for scholarly pursuits. So they take someone who would have made a great nurse or electrician, and turn it into a lousy commerce or management graduate.

/glad to finally find out what the fark these ads were for//you'd have to have been deaf, blind and dumb not to know these were for some ad stunt

And to add another wrinkle to the descriptions of colleges in Canada, it's important to understand that they are different in every province. For example, colleges in British Columbia have developed laddering programs that allow students to transfer straight from a college to a university without losing any credit; such as from an engineering technologist diploma program to a university's B.Eng. program. In Ontario, this is unheard of.

Yar, in the US a university offers post-graduate degrees, colleges only undergraduate degrees. Sounds like what Canadians call "colleges" we call "trade schools."

I tried like the dickens to get my kids to go to trade school. An electrician or a plumber--pay's good, join a union and hardly work, then retire at 55. Beats a liberal arts degree, that's for sure. If I could do it over again, a plumber's life for me! (hey diddley dee)

clambam:Sounds like what Canadians call "colleges" we call "trade schools."

Kinda, but not quite... trades are offered, but so are "non-trade" programs such as Computer Programmer, Business, Accouting, etc. - basically any part of university where they can take most of the theory out and just teach the practical. They're designed to teach you what you need to know to do the job, whereas University teaches you the theory behind it and the analytical thought processes needed.

Also, a lot of colleges have post-graduate diploma/certificate programs for both college and university graduates - like public relations, fundraising, etc. Essentially, more specialized practical knowledge. I know a number of people who completed university, then went to college for a year for one of these specialized programs.

Joe Two-Rivers:And to add another wrinkle to the descriptions of colleges in Canada, it's important to understand that they are different in every province. For example, colleges in British Columbia have developed laddering programs that allow students to transfer straight from a college to a university without losing any credit; such as from an engineering technologist diploma program to a university's B.Eng. program. In Ontario, this is unheard of.

sort of a sore subject for me. I got good grades in school, my parents wanted me to go to colle... university. In junior high school, you had to take shop (trade) courses. I did very well in them, and in fact, quite enjoyed them. I still have a crow bar (pry bar) I made in my metal works class.

I had a major row with my parents about choice of vocation. My dad never went to university, and I think he always resented being passed over repeatedly for a VP position when he was general manager of sales at his company, because he didn't have a degree.

Ultimately, it came down to 'because we are the parents and you have to do what we say until you are 18'. I could have dropped out of school at 16, but that option was not exactly available. So I basically had to cave and wallowed through the rest of my junior and senior high school career. I really didn't want a desk job.

As a teen, I worked various restaurant jobs, washing dishes, bussing tables. After graduating, retail (distributive education graduate in HS), then manufacturing as a mechanical assembler. I eventually became the best assembler in the plant, and often found myself having to tell the highly educated and very well paid engineers how to do their jobs. I was making a lofty 4.08 an hour in 1979.

I thought (incorrectly, as it turned out) maybe old Dad was right about going to University. Being very mechanically inclined, I decided to pursue Mechanical Engineering. Until I failed Calculus 4 times, never having taken it in High School, then my engineering dream died. I have since read that the brain connections that it takes to learn calc have to be started early in the teen years. I took three years off after HS before University. I'm inclined to believe that, as otherwise, I am extraordinarily good with number and math in general. Calculus was as foreign as Greek to me.

As far as I'm concerned, most university curriculum are designed to delay entry into the real working world as long as possible, in the vain hope that there will actually be jobs when you graduate. In essence, glorified post-adolescent day care.